Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Walkthrough
The Fall of Avalon runs on three large regions you explore in order, and the main quest threads through every one of them. You start in the Horns of the South, move north into Cuanacht, and finish in Forlorn Swords. The critical-path quest "A World to Win" sends you across all three to recover pieces of Arthur's soul, and almost everything you do in between is optional side work that pays out gear, experience, and the faction standing that decides your ending.
That structure matters for how you play. The Horns of the South carries roughly 45 side quests, Cuanacht close to 60, and Forlorn Swords only about 5, so the middle act is where the bulk of the content sits. Clear a region's side content before you push its main quest gate, because once the story moves you forward, some of those branches close behind you. The decisions you make along the way carry weight, and the big ones steer who survives to the finale.
The critical path: A World to Win
The main quest is a straight spine under all the optional sprawl. It opens on the Island Asylum with The Great Escape, where a masked knight frees you from a cell and walks you through the basics. From there the path runs:
- Shadow of the Horns (Horns of the South) is the first real fork. Captain Breandan sends you after Galahad the Pure, and you choose whether to kill entity:galahad and back the Southern rebellion or kill entity:one-eye and side with Kamelot. This single choice changes your combat difficulty for the rest of the run. See the Galahad or One-Eye guide for the full breakdown.
- Shuffling the Deck triggers at the Abandoned Stronghold if you took the Kamelot route through Shadow of the Horns.
- A World to Win is the through-line. It pulls you across the regions collecting fragments of Arthur's soul, and it gates the transitions between acts.
- Apocalypticists, Have a Nice Trip, Menhir Rites, and The Descent carry the Cuanacht stretch. Menhir Rites hands you another faction choice, whether to light the Menhir for Cuanacht's people or for Kamelot.
- Act 3 in Forlorn Swords ends at the Charred Conclave, where the grail holding Arthur's soul resolves into one of the game's many endings. The choices and endings hub maps how your earlier decisions feed that finale.
Treat the main quest as a checklist of region gates rather than a tight story you rush. Each gate is a point of no return for the side content behind it.
Horns of the South (Act 1)
The opening region is where you learn the systems and lock in your first heavy decision. Black Tar Prophecies starts with Jann Herber at the keep and runs through the druid entity:drest down on the beach, ending in the Drest-or-Iona sacrifice that determines whether Drest survives for his later quests. Broken Strings sends you into the Harpist's Tomb to reconcile two dead sisters, Aine and Aideen, with a day path and a night path that open different halves of the tomb. Age of Excuse has you befriend the knight Berach, who believes a curse hangs over him, and walk him toward a cure that turns out to be a placebo.
The South also hides optional combat. entity:abigor is a knight dying of the Red Death who offers an honorable duel, and beating him drops a full set of heavy early gear. Clear these before you finish Shadow of the Horns, because backing the Kamelot side hardens the region's enemies and a few threads tie to faction standing.
Cuanacht (Act 2)
Cuanacht holds the densest stack of side quests in the game, and several of its branches matter. Through the Cracks is one of the most-searched quests in the whole run: entity:syne the shopkeeper sends you into an otherworld through her warehouse, and you come out with the Mystic Ward weapon. Unforgettable starts back on the Island Asylum with a dead woman's unsent letter and resolves here in Cuanacht when you deliver the truth to her husband Erfyr, with a choice over how honest you are.
The region is thick with grey decisions. Dead as Dreams lets you kill, convert, or release the necromancer entity:yorath. When Gods Speak has you spare or kill the outcast Frail, which decides whether she can later become a Matron. The Forked Path and Stink and Burn both fork on who you trust, and The Heart That Defies ties into romancing the blacksmith entity:beor. Temptation is a pure persuasion check against Brother Ismat, no killing required if you read the room first. The Last Voyage and Over My Dead Bodies run the library and Alchemist Guild questlines toward their own conclusions.
Forlorn Swords (Act 3)
The final region is short on side quests and heavy on consequence. This is where the main quest converges and where the secret ending unlocks. The Weaver's Sanctum, hidden behind a waterfall, only opens after you finish the Weaver areas in the first two regions, and clearing its boss grants the Life Spindle. The two northeastern knight tombs sit here as well, opened with the Crown artifact. Finishing both the Weaver areas and the knight tombs is what puts the "Use the Life Spindle" option on the table at the Charred Conclave.
How to use this hub
Work region by region. Clear the Horns of the South side content, make your Galahad call, then move north. Strip Cuanacht's side quests before its main gates, since this is where the most branches and the best gear live. Save the heavy endgame prep, the Weaver areas and knight tombs, for when you reach Forlorn Swords with the artifacts that open them. The individual guides linked above go deep on the quests where a wrong turn costs you loot or locks a path, starting with the Through the Cracks walkthrough and the Black Tar Prophecies guide.